Why choose EU Medical Tourism in 2020?

Medical tourism refers to people traveling abroad to obtain medical treatment. In the past, this usually referred to those who traveled from less-developed countries to major medical centers in highly developed countries – since required healthcare treatment were unavailable at home. However, in recent years - it may equally refer to those from developed countries, who travel to developing countries for lower-priced medical treatments, such as rhytidectomy procedures, facelift surgery, facial cosmetic surgery and many others. The motivation may be also for medical services unavailable or non-licensed in the home country. [1]

Therefore - over the recent years, medical tourism quickly developed into a booming industry that is only becoming more and more popular for various types of surgical and non-surgical operations. One of the biggest reasons for the perpetual growth of the medical tourism industry is its lower costs compared to the UK, US, Swiss and some GEOs’ healthcare services. Yet, so called “medical tourists” can receive high quality medical help abroad, when paying a lot of attention and time to select a reliable and professional team - such as the one in Medical Travel clinique in Prague. In 2020, services of Medical Travel Czech cover such options as plastic surgery, IVF egg donation and weight loss procedures. All the consulting sessions on both preparations and recovery care – as well as – all the surgical operations are performed by experienced doctors, while relevant procedures are carried out by knowledgeable medical team in Prague.

When Did Medical Tourism Start?

Medical tourism is currently known as the part of health tourism, holding a long-standing history that goes back through the centuries. Historical records could even show that in Epidauria (Ancient Greece) patients visited the healing god Asklepios. At the same time – inhabitants of some neighboring countries used to travel to therapeutic spas and to collect water from holy shrines. In the 18th century - health spas already turned into a common destination for medical tourism. Since then, medical tourism is regarded as more organized travel outside the one’s natural health care jurisdiction. It is typically linked to certain engagements in leisure, businesses and other purposes. By the same talking - such widely common activity as health tourism, which also includes medical tourism, is generally defined as an organized travel outside one’s local environment for the maintenance, enhancement, or restoration of an individual’s well-being in mind and body. [2]

Benefits and Disadvantages of Medical Tourism

One of the most known advantages of medical tourism is in its rather competitive cost without compromising on the quality of healthcare services abroad. For instance, such an unbeatable combination applies to Czechia. After selecting the most suitable clinique, the most of potential patients are able to pay travel to Prague, medical treatment and accommodation expenses in the emerging medical tourism destination. Overall, the general cost and treatment quality are reasonably better, than average pricing for the treatment alone in their home countries. Thus, it explains an increasing success of receiving medical care at many health tourism destinations.

Among the disadvantages of medical tourism is the one that relates to health insurance. Due to the legitimate reasons – some of the health insurance companies may refuse to cover the patient’ case when he/she goes abroad. From the other side – some insurance firms may actually encourage patients to go abroad if any specific treatment is significantly cheaper, but then not cover the airfare and other expenses.

Medical Tourism Classification in 2020

Prior to considering various destinations and procedure for medical tourism in 2020 – it might be helpful to know about several classifications of health tourists, in general:

• Temporary visitors abroad are the ones, which go for either medical check-up or certain surgical/non-surgical treatment;

• Long-term residents e.g. people who moved into specific location because it’s better for their health state and the future living;

• Medical tourist, from 2 or more adjacent countries, which share the common borders and have also agreed upon sharing health care;

• Outsourced patients - these are the patients, which sent abroad by their government, as the neither necessary treatment nor the specialist is available locally. [3]

Sources:

[1] Wikipedia: Medical Tourism

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medical_tourism

[2] US National Library of Medicine: Cosmetic Medical Tourism – Beneficence or Maleficence?

https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/cosmetic-procedures/facelift/

[3] The Hubspot Blog: How to Attract Medical Tourists 

http://cdn2.hubspot.net/hub/136465/file-17570341-pdf/docs/how_to_attract_medical_tourists.pdf